Weekly Postcard Love - the last postcards

Eek! Happy New Year everyone! 2015 flew by for me, and so much happened! The whirlwind started almost a year ago in January 2015 when Instagram listed me as a suggested user. And it just got crazier from there. 

In 2015, I met Instagram and Etsy friends in person, finished a giant piece for I Madonnari in Santa Barbara, applied and participated in my first Renegade market, collaborated with Etsy, had my photos shared by A Beautiful Mess and the Huffington Post, and finished my first ever 52 week project.

Each week, a new postcard to make and send to someone, somewhere in the world. I think the farthest one of them traveled was to New Zealand and the Philippines. The closest was right here in the Santa Ynez Valley. And now it's done! 

I'm in the process of researching printing options to turn them all into a book for me to keep since they're all in their new homes. These are some of my favorite photos from throughout the year and all photos of all the postcards are up on my website. 

Tomorrow I'll be starting a new weekly postcard project! This one will be very different compared to last year's. I'm more nervous about not completing this one, it's bigger and more daunting than the last. I'll be posting about it tomorrow morning on Instagram if you'd like to follow along with my 2016 weekly project! 

Are any of you lovely friends out there trying a weekly or monthly project in 2016? 

Weekly Postcard Project: update II

It's a bit daunting that last week I reached week 26 of this project. The year is already halfway over and my project is as well! 

As each week progresses, I can see some changes between week 1 and week 26 already. I'm not sure if the postcards are getting any better but I think my photographs of them are. As a result, I think that's also reflecting in my product photography in my Etsy shop. I'm editing, framing and accessorizing things differently. 

If you're curious to see the full progression, you can see all the postcards together on my website. I really like seeing them all together, especially since I don't have all of them with me anymore! 

I've turned some of them into prints or notebooks already and a few have been added to my Society 6 shop too! I get a kick out of seeing a postcard as a cell phone case or a pillow. 

I still have trouble planning my postcards ahead of time, unless I know that I'm leaving on a Friday or have plans all Saturday. Sometimes I'll have enough foresight to make the postcard on Thursday to photograph on Friday, but not always. It's not uncommon for me to make the photograph on Saturday morning. But that's alright. I didn't expect this project to change my deep seeded procrastination habits in the slightest. 

Keep an eye on my Instagram tomorrow morning for Week 27 of #weeklypostcardlove! And if you haven't signed up for the Sketchy Notions Newsletter yet, you might want to get on it. I have some fun ideas brewing that I'm going to share next week! If you shared it with your friends, I'll love you even more! 

Weekly Postcard Project update I

I can't believe I'm already 16 weeks into my Weekly Postcard Project! It really puts how fast this year is going by into perspective...

The project is going along great! I'll admit, some weeks have been easier than others to sit down and make a postcard in advance. Some weeks I'm up early on Saturday morning to get it watercolored in time to post. And I'm not always the fastest to get them to the Post Office. But I really, really love this project! 

So far the farthest away I've mailed a postcard is to Germany! Another friend in Canada got one too. But most of the recipients have been domestic addresses. I also had my first repeat winner the other week too! I like that people are still entering even after they've won! It's nice to see people Posting It Forward in a way to send their postcard to a friend or a sister. 

I think the must fun aspect of this project is making the photo each week. It has been SO FUN figuring out new ways to display and collage an image together for each week. I get kinda giddy looking at the #weeklypostcardlove hashtag and seeing all the images together. So far, I think the bicycle color wheel up above and the butterfly chalkboards have been my favorite. 

I've gotten better about taking the photos but also editing them as well. All I use is a few giant sheets of watercolor paper and a sunny hallway! At first I used my phone to take the photos but I've shifted more into using my camera every time so I can edit them up with Gimp before posting. And I always do a high quality scan of the postcard before I mail it off to its new owner! 

I decided that at the end of the year since I will no longer have any of the postcards, I'm going to have a book made through Artifact Uprising. It will be fun to flip through all the pages and see how each week progressed from one postcard to the next. 

There's still plenty of weeks left for you to enter to have one mailed to you too! Just follow along on Instagram and keep an eye out every Saturday morning! 

Did you really have your eye on one of the postcards? You can find prints and notebooks with illustrations from the postcards in the Sketchy Notions shop! I'll be adding more throughout the year too...

16 weeks down, 36 to go! 

Do you have any ideas of images you'd like to see on a postcard this year? 

Weekly Postcard Project

Hello 2015, I have big plans for you! There's a lot brewing for the future of Sketchy Notions, which is a bit daunting. After the mayhem of Christmas wrapped up, I was able to finally just make stuff for fun. Which I really missed! 

I have also been wanting to try doing a weekly project this year as well. There's a lot of ideas floating around out there but none I could really picture myself committing to for 52 weeks. 

So, I thought up the Weekly Postcard Project. Each week I'm going to make/watercolor/draw/collage a postcard. I'll share it on Instagram on Saturday. Anyone that comments on that photo is in the running to win that postcard. On Monday, I'll randomly pick one of the comments and mail that postcard to them or someone of their choice anywhere in the world! 

I think it will be a fun little project to keep me making things just for fun, but also a fun way to spread a little bit of art around the world. It will be cool to see how far away these little postcards end up at the end of the year. 

The postcard below is week one! 1/52! I'll be sharing some of the postcards here on the blog but you can follow along on Instagram @sketchynotions and the hashtag #weeklypostcardlove 

Do you have any resolutions or weekly projects for the year? Big goals to tackle?

Did you blog about it? Share the link below!